Safe and Sound
by theshepherdmethod
Summary: In which I place Meredith and Derek from Grey's Anatomy in the arena of the Hunger Games. One chapter. Summary/background on the inside. COMPLETE.


**Hello, everyone! I would like to present to you this fanfiction, which is a crossover between The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, and the TV Show, Grey's Anatomy. **

Basically, what I did, is I placed Meredith and Derek (along with some other characters) into the arena of The Hunger Games. If you haven't read the book, I have a short background underneath. If you have, I hope you enjoy this one-shot! Starts as more of a Mer point of view, but shifts to Derek. WARNING: Possible character deaths. 

_In the book The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, 24 Tributes (children ages 12-17) are forced (reaped at random) to compete in a battle to the death in a public, televised arena. There are two from each districts selected at random. These tributes have to fight to the death, while the Capitol the weeks leading up to it, they are forced to train together to learn how to kill. Only one can win. I have instead placed Meredith and Derek from the TV show Grey's Anatomy into that arena. I hope I do an okay job of explaining this! _

Note: Some of the parts of the fic may seem rushed (you'll understand) because it was hard to explain the entire love story between Meredith and Derek in a one-shot. But, I hope I did an okay job of describing it! It's based on MerDer from the show Grey's Anatomy, so I hope you are all aware of their obvious love and chemistry already, so you can base their connection off of that. Enjoy!

**DISCLAIMER: **I do not own The Hunger Games or Grey's Anatomy. I am simply using this for fun.

* * *

Meredith was running. Her wild, curly blonde hair was now a mix of brown and red. Blood and mud. Funny, it rhymed.

Funny. Everything about this was funny. Like the fact that she, a girl only seventeen years of age, **seventeen**, and she was chosen as a tribute to compete in this bloodbath of a sport, where people watched and placed bets on their lives. Lives. Human lives. They placed bets on children lives, and it made her sick. No, it wasn't funny at all.

Twenty-four tributes have been chosen. Twenty-four innocent kids, with their whole lives ahead of them, had been chosen to ultimately fight till the death. And they had spent days training, learning different ways to kill once they had entered the arena. Different ways to make the other child suffer. A girl from another district, a young child named Bonnie, had died in the first ten minutes. She remembered. A stab wound to the abdomen. Blood everywhere. It was imprinted into her mind like a distorted stamp.

Fourteen tributes were killed in the first day. No, killed wasn't the right word. **Murdered. **They were murdered, by each other. On the second day, two more were lost. That was the day she had spent hidden in a tree, a hundred feet above the ground, her body pressed against the bark that scratched her skin, as the bristles of the leaves tangled with her hair. That day was the best she'd had. Being able to blend in and become invisible had been one of her many talents back in district nine, and now she was able to put it to full use. She hadn't killed any tributes. Yet.

Meredith paused for a second, leaning over with her hands on her knees, catching her breath. Her lungs inhaled as much oxygen as she could gather, and she leaned her back against a tree, sighing and letting her eyelids flutter shut for just a moment of peace. Whatever sun they were broadcasting into the arena was almost all the way down, as it was sunset. Rather than orange, the sky was a deep, blood red.

Realizing that there was no one following her, she took this moment to her advantage. She swung the backpack she had looped around her shoulders over to her front and opened it, resurveying the contents. She did this about every time she had a chance, but she felt the constant lingering feeling that someone had stolen something right under her nose, and rechecking her supplies was the only way she could reassure herself…

She rummaged through the pack carefully: A half full plastic jug of water, a handful of edible leaves and nuts, a rolled up pair of socks, one small bread roll that had been sent to her from her generous sponsors in the capitol, and lastly, three berries. These berries were called nightlock, and she had collected them the first day she arrived: they were deadly, poisonous berries, most likely placed in the arena to trick some unlucky tributes, but Meredith was using them to her advantage. She was keeping them, just in case things got too much to handle.

Before shutting her pack, she eyed the jug of water longingly. Oh, how she wanted to take a sip. Just one sip. Her lips were dry and cracking now, both from the sweltering heat of the day and the running she had been doing, and her thirst was increasing by the minute. But she had told herself she wouldn't take a drink until she reached her place of camping for the night, so she continued on her treck.

She had spent almost every night so far in a tree, finding a wide enough trunk to cradle her small body onto and tying herself in with ropes she had found when she retrieved the pack. The ropes were lost on day two, though, when she got into a run in from the Tributes from District Eleven.

Day three was different. After her tree conveniently became home to a nest of tracker jackers- basically bees on steroids, carrying a deadly poison of a thousand narcotic infused needles- she was forced to flee, and she did just that. After falling from the tree itself and landing badly on her ankle in a pile of dead leaves, she limped as far as she could away from her spot. The arena was in the shape of a circular dome, filled with all the essence of a normal forest, but with ten times the terror. So she ran, fleeing from the cloud of insects, and she soon learned that a tribute close by did not luck out she did. A fifteen year old boy with a baby face. George.

That hit her harder than anything else had. George had been very kind to her since the day she met him in training. All the tributes had been forced to train together, and during those two days, she had become very fond of him. He was genuinely sweet, and every sleepless night she thought of him, thought of how innocent he was, and thought of the horrors to come. And that shook her to the bone. She had considered teaming up with him to protect him, but by the time the games had began, he ran the other direction. Little did she know, he was under her nose the whole time. After the fifth day, there were exactly six tributes left.

These tributes were the ones who had caught her eye on the first day. Denny, an intelligent seventeen year old from District Two, was clearly a step ahead of everybody else. There was Rose, a vicious and nearly psychotic sixteen year old from District Three, as well as Henry, a gentle thirteen year old also from District Three. Gary, a sixteen year old from District One, was the most distinct threat, and lastly, the seventeen year old boy from District Nine. Derek Shepherd.

Derek Shepherd had caught her eye in a different way than George had. When she saw George, she had the urge to help him, to comfort him, to tell him they could be friends and he would be okay. But when she saw Derek, she had the complete and total urge to fiercely protect him. To protect his life.

She had met him while training on day one, as they both reached for the same sword to practice throwing. Their hands touched, the warmth of skin against skin, and by the times their eyes met- his an icy blue color- she knew that something was there. A spark. Or whatever they called it.

But that encounter wasn't what made her realize that he was something more than just another competitor. It was the day after- day two- that scribbled it in stone. It was during training once again, and after spending a good hour slinging arrows into the bulls eye of leather mannequins, her body felt as if it was going into overdrive, like an overheating computer. Sweat was dripping her forehead, trailing paths across her temple, and every joint her body was aching, screaming with throbbing pain, and her muscles were so tense that when she released them, they seemed to collapse into a stringy pile of noodles. And along with that, the thought that soon she'd be going into an arena requiring her to kill people was just too much. So she couldn't help herself when she made her way over to a corner of the training room, tucked her knees under her chest, and began to cry.

It was when she'd felt a hand on her shoulder that she had looked up from her feet, expecting it to be Gary or Denny or someone ready to mock her for her supposed weakness. But no, it wasn't the bitter, laughing face of a teasing tribute. It was Derek Shepherd, coming to sit down next to her instead.

"_Are you okay?" He was a boy with sparkling blue eyes, and his wavy black hair suggested good personal hygiene. He had slid down the wall next to her, and she could feel her cheeks burning red in embarrassment. She had been told not to show weakness during training, and she was already failing. "I know it's scary," The boy said, and his hand traveled up and down her back slowly, gently. It was comforting. She sniffled. "My name's Derek. District Nine. You're Meredith, right?" She nodded, her mind fuzzy. She wiped furiously at her nose, sighing. _

"_I don't really feel like talking about it," She sighed, staring intently at the matted ground. _

"_That's understandable." He replied simply, and she could see him nod out of the corner of his eye. "How do you like training?" _

_She raised her eyebrows, "Please tell me you're not seriously asking that question."_

"_I'm not. I'm trying to make conversation," He said again easily, as if it was a totally normal thing to be doing. Trying to make friends with the people you'd be force to kill a little later. "What's your story?"_

"_I don't have a story!" She insisted, bewilderment teetering at the edge of her voice. Whoever this boy was, she was getting very annoyed very fast. _

_He seemed to begin to grin, "Neither do I, so it looks like we'll have plenty to talk about, then." _

_She swallowed nervously. No one had been nice to her here. Not even the other boy in her district. But soon, she'd have to be killing them, anyway, soon… Tears filled her eyes again and she stuffed her face against her sleeve, humiliated._

_She felt his hand on her back again, "Hey," he said quietly. "You're going to be okay." _

Meredith wondered how Derek was doing. She had been wondering the entire time.

The sun was completely down, at this point, and the world around her was dark, only the black outlines of trees providing a shadowy path through the forest. She pushed through leaves, and could feel the scrape of the ferns that brushed across her ankles as she walked. She pressed further ahead; it was too dark to climb up a tree and make camp, so she'd have to depend on hiding beneath a sheath of the dry leaves for the night. She silently scolded herself for not settling down earlier, but hey; what could she do about it now?

Taking careful steps through the darkness, she managed to eventually find a log that had toppled over, and in the smallest corner underneath it, she figured she could cover herself well enough to survive the night, at least. She ran her hands across the ground, forcing her eyes to somewhat adjust to the darkness, and found leaves to begin to pile around her. She took a hold of wide, dead branches and leaned them against the log itself to provide some kind of barrier for herself. By the time she was done, she wasn't entirely satisfied, but it was enough. It had to be enough, because she didn't have time for anything else.

She settled herself as far into the little crevice as she could and laid her head on a bed of moss, tucking her legs underneath her chin carefully. She kept her small backpack on her back as she shifted to try to find a somewhat comfortable position. Hunger gurgled at her stomach, but at this point, it was too late to hunt, and she wanted to save her leaves and nuts for morning energy. Letting her eyes shut out the myriad of shadows of trees, she began to drift off slowly…

The snapping of a large twig was what Meredith awoke to in the morning. It wasn't the rustle of leaves that would have been caused by the harmless wind, but a snap caused clearly by a human misstep. Meredith rubbed the fuzzy sleep out of her eyes and crawled onto her knees, peeking out between the wall of sticks she had stacked the night before. She couldn't see anything, but moments later, another stick snapped in the similar direction. Meredith placed her hand around the knife on her belt- not that she could think of one way to use it- and carefully moved her head out of her concealment, her eyes scanning through the dawn-lit forest.

Something made that noise, and it was a lot bigger than a field mouse or a landing bird. Meredith shifted as she crawled forward on her knees carefully, determined to figure out the cause for the noise. What if it was a large animal? Or one that could possibly be used for meat? Meredith's mouth nearly watered at the thought as she slowly and carefully slid out of the pile of sticks and dry leaves, staying low and careful. She used one hand to keep on her knife readily, her eyes flickering from one side of the forest to the night. She forced her ears to pick up every noise she heard.

It was then when she heard the angry, panicked shouting coming from her left. She scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping as the toes of her boots became stuck in mud multiple times, and pulled out her knife, approaching the camp site with a slow gliding walk, staying low to the ground of the jungle.

"Get off of me!"

"Will you just hold still? This would make my job so much easier!"

"Aa! Just let me go, I'm not going to attack you!"

"Smile, pretty boy. This face of yours could use a little touching up…"

Meredith couldn't hear much else as she made her way to where the noises were coming from, and as she approached it, she bit her lip as she peeked through an empty window in the brush. Glancing through, the first thing that caught her eye was the hair. Black, wild, long hair, squirming like a pile of noodles in the leaves, fighting off the figure on top of him.

Derek.

Rose, the Tribute from District Three, had somehow managed to land on top of Derek, squirming with her small carving knife pressed against his face. Meredith remembered Rose hadn't had any special talents, but simply recalled her being incredible fit as well as fearless- which she seemed to be displaying right then.

Meredith kept herself well concealed as she watched, her eyes finding spaces through the wall of leaves to observe the encounter, and the voices in her head battled each other violently. She could sit and watch, silently praying that the right one would off the other and that she wouldn't have to worry about feeling bad about it later, or she could jump in and try to do something about it. The latter seemed to be the least appealing choice, but simply made the most sense to her. She didn't know why she made the decision, but she did.

The art of sheer surprise turned into her greatest weapon. There was less than a second between the time that Meredith made her decision and when she pounced, leaping from the brush, making some sort of noise as she flew at the two Tributes. Hair whipped her face as she landed against Rose, shoving her off Derek, turning their fight into hers. Derek was sweating and underneath a tangled bundle of vines, clearly having struggled dealing with the nimble Rose.

"Are you an idiot?" Rose shouted, her deep brown hair matted with leaves as Meredith pressed her against the ground, taking every chance she could to smack her in the face with a punch. Rose twisted her feet around Meredith's and kicked hard, in a feeble attempt to get away. Meredith may have been smaller than her, but she had trained hard, and luckily this was one of the moves she'd learned in wrestling. Meredith sat on her chest, tugging at her hair.

"You were going to kill him, weren't you?" She shouted, hostility running through her voice in splotchy puddles. Rose was busy squirming to get away, so Meredith repeated herself, louder. "Weren't you?"

"That's what… this game is, the point is…" Rose was struggling to get her words out in one piece as Meredith bore down more weight on her. "Whoever wins… has to… kill…" She coughed. "I'll kill you, Grey!"

Meredith bared her teeth, like an animal, yanking at Rose's hair. "Not everyone kills people as easy as you. You killed Bonnie, right? Wasn't that you?" Bonnie had been so young. So sweet. So vulnerable. And Meredith had to watch as that all was cut off in an instant.

Rose squirmed hard underneath her, her hands scrabbling at the dry leaves that coated the ground as Meredith's head was reeling. What was she doing? Where would she go from here? She couldn't kill. She wouldn't. But what other options were there? Rose's deep brown eyes glared up at her as she gritted her teeth, daring Meredith to make the next move. Meredith couldn't help but to wonder furiously where Derek was and why he wasn't trying to help her. Did he run away to let her do the dirty work? Oh, he better have not run away and left her to do this... that pansy…

Her thoughts were interrupted when she noticed Rose struggling to get a grip on her knife, "At least I can kill your… precious little… lover… boy," She puffed out, flipping her knife with her free hand. It was then when Meredith realized that Derek was still on the ground, clearly injured. But that didn't stop Rose, and she pulled back her knife, ready to throw. Right in Derek's direction.

And when Meredith heard Derek cry out from behind her as the knife made contact, that was it. She pulled out her knife, shut her eyes, and the girl from District Three was dead.

Meredith didn't have time to think about what she had just done. She crawled from over Rose's body and was breathing raggedly by the time she made her way to Derek. A punch from the girl from District Three had left her nose running with a trail of blood that she could taste on her lips, and she spit at the ground, trying to clear her eyes enough to survey the damage made on Derek.

It didn't look too bad, but it was obviously bad enough to keep him on the ground. It had sliced a gash along his arm, not too deep, but very long. Meredith watched as blood began to saturate his thin jacket. "I was never very good at dealing with the whole fighting aspect," He said, his voice laced with pain, but a small smile was forming at his lips as he stared up at her. With those beautiful blue eyes.

"Shut up, you could have gotten yourself killed," She muttered, but her voice was shaking. She tore a strip of fabric from the bottom of her pants and tied it tightly so that it would cover as much as the wound as she could get to. A thin cut had also been made down his hairline- something that must have been Rose's cruel idea- and Meredith groaned. "God, Derek, why didn't you fight?" She took her finger and swiped away some of the blood with her thumb. "You're bigger, and stronger. You could have taken her."

He was staring up at her, his twinkling eyes wide, "You saved my life."

She could feel her cheeks burn, "That's not answering the question. Why didn't you fight?" Light was beginning to fill the arena, peeking through the trees, and the shadows began to dance.

"I told you this when we met. I just don't want someone else's blood on my hands," He stated, as if it was that simple. Meredith bit her lip, the dull aching feeling in her stomach a painful reminder that she had done just that. "I don't want to play this game."

"What does that make me, then?" She muttered, more bitter than she had meant it in the first place. Her tone was starting to lean towards accusatory, but she certainly hadn't meant it like that.

His face fell from the original star-struck gaze, "That makes you the person who saved my life."

His words were so simple, so true, so real… That she couldn't even think of a response. He was from District Nine. They both couldn't win. What was she doing? Why was she falling for someone who she had never had a chance with the first place? "You're an idiot," She whispered, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. "A cheesy idiot."

"I may be an idiot, but we're both going to be dead idiots if we don't move," Derek observed. He was right. And with Rose down now, that left Derek, Meredith, Denny, Henry, and Gary. The most dangerous people of the pack, and Meredith guessed they had most likely teamed up. Meredith eyed his arm cautiously, ready to protest, but she knew it would be no use. They _had to move, _there was simply no other option.

"Okay, here," she scrabbled to her feet, brushing off her knees, coated with both dirt and blood. She bent down and used her two hands to support his shoulders as she tried her best to lift him up. She was small, though, petite, and he was bigger than her. Not huge, but there was definitely a notable difference. With a joint effort, though, they were able to successfully get him to his feet with minimal use of his arm. Meredith slung his good arm around her shoulder and tucked her hand around his waist, steadying him as they began to walk.

She knew how dangerous this was. She knew _very well _how dangerous this was. She had only one free hand, and while helping keep him up, she wasn't able to keep her eyes on the entirety of the forest around her. Danger lurked at every corner. She relied on her ears more than anything else at this point. They were the only things she could depend on; and she used these as they hobbled through the forest for a solid two hours, taking cover behind various plants and leaves that poked up from the warm earth, stopping every now and then to assist Derek with his arm.

By the time they reached the river, Meredith was panting and exhausted, and she nearly collapsed on the rocky bank. Derek did so beside her, paled and out of breath, but he hadn't complained once. She sat for a moment, and after finding a spot under a rocky ledge that would provide some form of shelter, she relaxed. "How are you doing?" She said to him as she slung her pack around to her front, opening it.

He eyed her, "Excellent." He watched with curious eyes as she dumped the contents onto the rocky slate in front of her, and after looking at everything she had, he pointed to the berries, "Can I have one?"

She laughed, "If you want to just put yourself out of your misery right now," she noticed his confused look and explained it to him. "Those are nightlock. You'd be dead before they reach your stomach."

"Then why do you carry them?" He asked, so innocently. She took some nuts from her pile and held them out to him.

As he began to eat, she sighed, and leaned back on her elbows, not eager to give an explanation. "In case things got too hard, I guess. I don't really know." He raised his eyebrows, frowned slightly, and continued to eat. She slid cautiously down the bank until she reached the water, and carefully dunked her empty jar into the water before taking a swig.

Meredith pulled her ponytail out and shook her hair around her head, as Derek watched, smiling stupidly. He stayed where he was, though, tossing the shells of nuts into the water.

The more she looked at him, the more she realized. He wasn't just some nice guy. If he was, then he would have tricked her and ran away when he had the chance. He would have led her into a trap using his injury as an excuse. But he didn't do any of that. Derek Shepherd was a good man, and for some reason, she couldn't leave. She turned, smiling genuinely, and patted the rock next to her. "Come here."

He did so, sliding down the slated rock that covered the bank until the toes of his boots were in the water, and he sat directly next to her. The smile that stretched across his face made it evident that he was excited to be sitting so close to her, and that made her smile, too. Wordlessly, she began removing the makeshift bandage on his arm carefully, and if it hurt, he didn't show it. She dipped it in the water and ran her fingers along it, watching as the blood floated away in the waves, blooming like a crimson rose. She laid it on the rock next to her, letting the sun's rays beat it dry.

Meredith dipped her hands into the lukewarm river and formed a cup to hold a small handful of water, and carefully brought it to his shoulder and let it run down his arm slowly, and it carried streaks of the red blood with it. He shifted uncomfortably for a moment, but let her continue, dripping streams of water down as she tried to clean it up the best she could. "You're lucky it wasn't deeper," She murmured, tracing the outline of the jagged mark that trailed down his muscular upper arm. When it was about as clean as it could get, she re-wrapped the bandage and patted it dry.

"Thank you, Meredith," he replied, nodding gratefully. She nodded back and faced the water, letting the toes of her boots sink a little bit into the rocky floor. She watched the current rush back and forth, back and forth. Too strong to swim through... "Can I ask you something?" He said plaintively, interrupting her thoughts.

"Sure." She ran her toes along the river's floor.

"Why'd you save me?" He asked quietly, looking at her. "You didn't have to do it."

There, he said it. It was such a simple question, really: Except it really wasn't. There were too many answers to it. Too many things Meredith didn't know how to answer or interpret. She bit her lip, staring at the water, watched it delve between rocks and carry leaves down the current, begging for a little extra time to answer the question, because she herself couldn't. Why did she save him? Was it an act of humanity? Was it her conscious that told herself to do it?

No, it was none of these things. She had run past Bonnie when she was bleeding out because of the present threat of Denny and Gary. So why didn't she run past Derek? Wasn't this a competition for survival? There could be only one winner, anyway, so why did she stop. Why. Why? There had to be a reason, there had to be something. Maybe she liked him a little bit, but… she had liked George too. She didn't want him to have to die, but there was no other choice. And now she was here, allied with some guy she barely knew, yet at the same time, unable to give an answer why.

But when she looked into his eyes, and their gaze locked, she knew. Derek Shepherd had given her hope when no one else would. He wouldn't let her give up. He was there for her when no one else was. Meredith didn't grow up with a family, but when she looked at Derek, she felt like she had one. She had someone. She hadn't known him for a full week, but she already knew.

She was in love with him.

Meredith then, shocking even herself, leaned over and pressed her lips to his. She could distantly feel his hand caress her hair, and she put hers on his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin radiate against her palm. They leaned into each other, and their mouths danced in sync, and she felt it. All of it. The sparks, the fire, the love. She could physically feel it for the first time in her life.

When they pulled away, he still had her fingers in strands of her soft hair. He looked about as shocked as she felt. "I saved you because you saved me first," She said softly. This was weird. Different. She was never vulnerable like this. Not with anyone, but right then- whether the capitol was watching in awe or not- she felt like she could. Funny she hadn't even known him for a full week, and she felt more for him than she ever had with anybody else before.

When he sat down with her during training, it reminded her that there was still good in the world. And it was Derek Shepherd.

"What do you mean?" He asked. It was obvious that he was still breathless and in a slight shocked state from the kissing.

"I mean, when you sat down with me in the training center and told me I'd be okay, that was the first time anyone had said that to me in… forever. It was what I've needed to hear for years now," she said with a soft sigh. "If you hadn't been there, I probably would have given up in the first few minutes of the games. I would be dead already."

He nodded slowly, absorbing the information carefully. "Oh," was his quiet response. He obviously hadn't expected that. It was quiet for a moment before he continued, using his finger to trace a small object in the sand. "I knew I… really liked you when I saw you during the tribute parade. You looked so beautiful," He admitted. Meredith could feel herself beginning to blush. No one had ever complimented her like that before. Ever. Not even her parents; her dad was always too drunk to do anything but hit her, and her mother was never, ever home. And someone had just called _her _beautiful. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "And then during training. You weren't like the others."

And so they sat there for awhile, talking; not about anything specific, more like everything. They discussed the weather in their districts, the politics of Panem, they talked about Derek's big family and Meredith's pet cat. They sat there, dipping their toes in the water and listening to the soft babbling of the stream until the sun went down. Meredith felt the most content she had been in a long, long time.

By the time it was nearing time for the anthem- a projected presentation in the sky that displayed all the dead tributes from that day- they had moved up from their place on the edge of the water and settled down on some flat rocks, concealed in a crevice from the rest of the world. Meredith laid out her backpack as best as she could to use it as a makeshift pillow they could share. As she was doing so, Derek was speaking quietly, "Do we have enough protection here, do you think?"

Meredith splayed her backpack out to the best of her ability. "Yes, I do. There are still three tributes left. I'm guessing Henry and Gary teamed up and Denny is by himself. They'll hunt him first," She whispered, and although she didn't favor any of them, the words stung. She stopped smoothing out the backpack for a second and stared at the ground. Tears furrowed in her eyes before she could stop them, and Derek noticed, too.

Concern flooded his expression, and he frowned, "What's wrong?"

"I don't want anyone else to have to die," She said simply.

"I know."

"I want to go home," She continued. She knew it was no use. But she had to just let her guard down for a second, let herself breathe. Her lip quivered. "I don't want to be here anymore."

"Hey… hey…" Derek said, frowning as he inched over next to her. He was cautious as he wrapped his big arms around her shaking frame, and he pulled her into him. She sighed, nuzzling her face against the warmth of his chest. "It's going to be okay, Meredith. I'm here now. You just said yourself that we'd be safe as long as there were three other people. It's okay." He ran his hands down her hairline gently, and she could feel him rocking her. For people who had only met days before, she had never, ever felt so safe.

"Derek," She whispered. Her voice was muffled. "Derek, only one can come out alive. We both can't~"

"Shhh…" He said, cutting her off. She could feel his hands rub her back slowly. "Don't talk like that. Not right now." She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could block out the world, and just live in the moment forever. "You'll be alright, Meredith. No one can hurt you now." And as she sat, cradled in someone's arms for the first time ever, she drifted to sleep.

* * *

In her sleep, she dreamed of years in the future, of a magical place where the sun rose early and cast a yellow glow across beautiful grassy lands. She dreamed of a small house. She dreamed of a family, of kids with long dark hair that chased each other in the yard and had tickle fights every night before bed. She dreamed of laying with Derek on the porch, of watching the stars. She dreamed that everything was okay, and that everything would end up okay. She dreamed and dreamed and dreamed….

* * *

Derek, on the other hand, sat watch, and held her. He looked down at her face and couldn't help but to smile. She was beautiful, even when she slept. Breathtakingly stunning. Everything about her took his breath away, and he couldn't even imagine that it had just been a few days. Because when he looked at her, he could see a whole lifetime ahead of them.

"Meredith," Derek's voice echoed in her ears, pulling her from her stupor. She blinked open, and her vision was fuzzy as she forced herself to blink. It was still dark. What? Why was it still dark? It took another panicked "Meredith!" to wake her up completely, and she sat up, rubbing her eyes.

"Mmm…?" She wasn't in a dream anymore. She was right where she started. Fuzzy with sleep, she tried to cuddle back between Derek's arms, but he wouldn't let her. He had both of his hands on her shoulders, shaking her back to reality. "What is it?"

She could see it in the panic in his eyes before he said it. "Denny and Henry are dead," He said, his voice trembling. She could now see that he was busy trying to gather the contents of her backpack, and she froze, her mind spinning. She couldn't see straight. This whole competition had been hard, but she hadn't been forced to kill anyone yet. She'd survived by hiding, and depending on the fact that other tributes would kill each other off first. That no one would target her. And now, she couldn't depend on that anymore. There was only one left. Gary, the tribute from District One. The most dangerous one. And he was looking for them. Meredith sat there, staring at the wall with wide eyes, paralyzed with fear.

"Meredith? Snap out of it!" Derek's voice was pleading, desperate and frantic. "We have to get out of here, we have to move!" It was clear that the water source would be the first place that Gary would look, and they had to get out of there. He gave her shoulders a small shake again until she started moving, helping him get the backpack on her again. And then they ran.

Derek's arm was healing fast, luckily. Through the dark, he could hear only the sounds of his and Meredith's footsteps crunching through the dry leaves loudly. Each time his foot pounded the earth, he could hear Meredith's right next to him, as well as the sound of her backpack pounding against her back at a rapid pace. He didn't know where they were running, but he knew they had to get far.

They could barely make out the silhouettes of the eerie trees that hung against each other along the forest. Their feet slapped the ground, their heartbeats pounding in a race against the clock. Meredith stumbled every now and then, with Derek there to help her up, to keep her moving. Their lungs were full and stinging with pent up air, and they struggled to grasp the oxygen they needed as they ran, ran, and ran. Their legs pumped and they used their arms to push away vines and webs and anything else that hung in their way.

Derek only had one thing in his mind. And that was to protect Meredith. From the moment he saw her during the broadcasted reapings, he could tell she was no ordinary girl. She was stunning, but had a certain grace and civility about her that none of the other tributes held. She was poised, yet at the same time, had her own quirkiness to her. And, when he actually met her for the first time, she had never felt anything so strong and so quick in his life. And then he believed in love at first sight. During the days of group training, he fell faster and faster for her, into a dizzying freefall so fast that he didn't know which was up. And when he saw her crying on the floor of the training center, he knew that she wasn't like everybody else. And that's when he made the vow to himself to protect her.

It seemed crazy, at the time. To vow to give up your life for someone you had just met, and who didn't even seem to return the love. But Derek knew that if any of them deserved to win, it was Meredith. She had a truly good heart, and Derek wanted to personally see to it that she was able to go on with her life and have the money to do what she wanted. He didn't want her to struggle like everyone else in the other districts. He wanted her to have the life she always dreamed of, even if it meant ending his. He didn't need anything else but her. Derek Shepherd was way, unmistakably, irreversibly head over heels in love. And he didn't care.

They kept moving until dawn hit, the light creeping up into the edge of the forest. By this time, they had covered miles of ground away from where they had set up camp, and they collapsed into a heap on the ground together. Meredith struggled to catch her breath, her eyes stinging from running so quickly in the thin night air. Derek laid flat on the ground, exhaling and inhaling slowly, carefully, savoring the oxygen that melted into his lungs. "Are you okay?" He breathed out. They barely talked on their travels over, in fear of making too much noise.

Meredith nodded, the raw air still puffing raggedly from her lungs, "Y-Yeah, what about you?"

He nodded slowly, trying to catch his lost breath. "I'm fine," He said softly. He opened his closed eyelids and observed where they had collapsed. A small clearing in the forest, and they lay on a bed of puffy green grass. He exhaled. They were safe, now. They were so far away that Gary would never be able to find them. "Meredith," He said softly. He didn't have any intention of finishing the sentence- he just wanted to say her name. It had only been days. They barely knew each other. Came from different districts. They had never even seen each other before the reaping, and now one week later, Derek couldn't imagine his life without her. This kind of love only happened in fairytales. He caught his breath and said softly, "We're safe. And we're going to be okay."

He sat up and pulled her into his arms, and she wrapped her small arms around his waist, breathing him in. He couldn't believe it. They had only been traveling together for two days. Two days, and already… Already, he couldn't see his future without her in it. He buried his face in her neck and shut his eyes, exhaling deeply.

Then came a sound.

The snap of a branch.

The sound of an inhale.

A breath.

Derek's knife flying through the air and landing square in Gary's chest. An instant kill. The danger was gone. They were safe.

But Derek was too late. When he looked down, Meredith looked up at him, her eyes wide, and when she pulled her hand away from her stomach, it was smeared with blood. Her blood. The blood that came from the place where Gary's spear impaled her.

Derek's world came to a crashing halt.

"Derek," She choked out, her voice small and full of terror as she stared at the blood that coated her hands. "I…" She couldn't finish her sentence. Derek, his hands shaking, fell to the ground. He couldn't breathe. Where was the oxygen? He needed oxygen. Couldn't get enough. His breath escaped him. The world was spinning. The red stain was coating her jacket. "Derek," She whimpered again. He snapped back to reality.

Maybe it wasn't that bad.

Maybe he could save her.

With shaking hands, he picked up her head and put it in his lap carefully. Her entire body was trembling as she stared up at him desperately. He peeled the bottom of her shirt up to survey the damage, but he wish he hadn't.

It was no use. It was too far gone. Not even the Capitol and their fancy medical equipment could save her now.

Meredith was dying. His Meredith was dying.

"Derek," She said again. The color was draining from her face slowly, every so slowly. Derek ripped fabric from his shirt and pressed it to her wound, hoping to stop the bleeding, but the crimson red puddle just grew bigger. His lip began to quiver, and that's when he realized he was crying, tears cutting through the mud and dried blood that caked his face. Her wide, innocent eyes stared up at him. "It's bad, isn't it?" Her voice broke, body shaking.

"No," He croaked. A lie. A blatant lie. "You're going to make it out of here."

The world around them stood still. Silent. Unmoving. Not a creature in the forest made a move. "Derek," She whispered, biting her trembling lip. "My mother is a doctor. I… I know…" She shook her head, and a tear fell down her cheek. "Don't lie to me. Please. Tell me the truth."

He couldn't bring himself to say anything before a loud, ugly sob caught at the back of his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, his tears lodged in the back of his throat, and he nodded. Tears escaped from his closed eyes and fell onto her own cheeks, and he continued to shake his head, the sound of crying escaping from the back of his throat. "Meredith. Meredith, I'm sorry," He cried, holding her head in his lap. He ran his fingers through her hair, cradling her, and all she could do was nod. Tears rolled down her cheeks slowly, and she let out a shallow breath.

"It's okay. You know what you're going to do?" She whispered through her tears. "You're going to win. You're the victor. You're going to go back there and use your money and buy your family a nice house, okay?" Tears sliced through her words. "Can you do that for me? Derek, Derek, can you?"

But he couldn't do that for her. Because now that he knew her, now that he was in love, he wasn't going to let her go. He couldn't. She was what he needed. "Meredith," He said, his voice crumbling in the middle as he held her head.

"Listen to me," She whispered, her voice getting quieter now. "I want you to live the life you… always wanted…" She was struggling to force the words out. More tears fell, and she repeated the words furiously. "Derek, I love you. I **love** you."

One week. They had only known each other for one short week. And that was enough for them to fall in love.

"This isn't how it was supposed to end," She said, her voice weak and shaking. "I had dreams… dreams about, about… kids… a house…" She was trembling, her face having a dull, pasty pallor about it. "Oh, Derek," Her voice broke, and she began to cry again. Her breaths caught unevenly, and the blood spread to her chest, down her legs.

Derek didn't know what to do. His whole world had come to a crashing halt. This _wasn't _the way it was supposed to end. They could have had a future. They could have found a way out of this. Maybe. But they would have tried, together. This wasn't fair. None of it was fair.

And then it occurred to him. If he couldn't live with Meredith, he didn't want to live at all.

With a trembling hand, he reached into her backpack slowly, and pulled out a handful of nightlock.

And when Meredith saw him, she knew what he was going to do. Her voice was thick with tears and panic, "No, n-no, Derek, don't do this. Don't do this!" The tears cascaded down her face faster now. She was too weak to move. "You don't have to do this for me…"

Derek took a deep breath and looked at her sadly. The tears continued to fall, but silently now. He put a hand on her cheek, swiping a tear away with his thumb carefully. "I don't want to live if it can't be with you," he whispered softly. Meredith bit her lip, whimpering, but not objecting. "I'm not letting you do this alone, Meredith."

She didn't know what to do. She was at a loss. "I love you, a lot," She croaked, her voice broken and raw. As her tears fell, she begged, "Hold my hand. Please."

He nodded and found her shaking, pale hand, and wrapped his hand around it tightly, giving her a small squeeze. "Thank you for saving me," He whispered. Leaning over, he pressed a firm kiss against her temple, feeling her warm skin against his lips. "I love you, Meredith Grey." She was fading now, her eyes fluttering shut, her breathing slowing gradually.

And then he poured the berries into his mouth.

...

He shut his eyes.

...

Watched Meredith's chest fall.

..

And he slept.

.

* * *

Derek Shepherd woke up with a start, breathing heavily, panting into the Seattle night air.

He hated bad dreams. And, Meredith- who lay sleeping next to him- had warned him not to read before bed.

* * *

**AN: **Okay, guys! What did you think? This is a different style for me and I threw it together pretty quick. Sorry for any grammar errors and such. Let me know what you think! (Please, keep your negative comments to yourselves, if you can! It would be appreciated.)

Thanks for reading!


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